Durban

Durban was the first city in South Africa to establish a metropolitan police service under the new legislation. Its predecessor, the Durban City Police, was the only city-based police agency in South Africa, and was widely regarded as a model for the legislation.

In May 1999, an agreement was signed between the Durban Metropolitan Council and its local councils in which the latter ceded their competency in the areas of fire, disaster management, traffic and security to the metro administration. That agreement prepared the way for the establishment of a metro-wide police service.

In January 2000, the Durban Metropolitan Council applied to the KwaZulu Natal provincial government to establish a metro police service and, six months later, the Durban Metropolitan Police Service (DMPS) was launched. The Chief of the Durban Metropolitan Police Service is Lungisa Manzi, a former SAPS officer. The DMPS is based on the amalgamation of the old City Police with traffic departments and some bylaw enforcement components of the other local councils in the Durban metropolitan area.

At present, the DMPS is made up of approximately 1 000 personnel of whom about 765 are uniformed members. The DMPS has six rank levels and is largely built on the institutional structures of the old City Police, with some of the members being drawn from the traffic departments of municipalities which were included in the Durban Metro when the new demarcations came into effect at the end of 2000. The former traffic officers are undergoing the 'conversion training' which enables them to become metro police officers. According to the legislation, all the traffic officers must have completed this training within three years or they will lose their positions in the MPS. The training is ongoing at the moment.

There are currently no municipal courts in Durban. There is a need for such courts and the DMPS is trying to solicit funds for their establishment.

The City of Durban has not completed the 'purification' of its bylaws, and this process—which will result in one new set of bylaws for the metro area—is planned for completion by the end of 2001.

The DMPS has defined its 'priority areas' of operation in accordance with the SAPS' priority station areas in greater Durban—those police stations with particularly high levels of reported crime. They include:

• Northern areas like KwaMashu, Inanda and Phoenix
  
  

• Durban Central, Green Park and the northern parts of the CBD
  
  

• Southern parts of the CBD and the southern industrial basin, Maydon Wharf, Cato Manor and Pinetown
  
  

• Umlazi and areas south of Durban
  
  

• Amanzimtoti and the informal settlements nearby.
  

The City of Durban has budgeted approximately R216 million this year for Protection and Emergency services (including the DMPS). This is not a significant increase on the R203 million allocated last year because the costs of the DMPS are not that different from the costs of the former City Police and traffic components.

The Durban MPS has some significant advantages over the other cities, as it has an already-established source of funding from within the city's fiscus, as well as the inherited organisation of a local government police service. Even for Durban though, there have been significant transformational challenges; including the formal appointment of new managers and the absorption and reorganisation of various surrounding traffic and security departments to fit in with the newly established local government boundaries.

More than any other city, however, Durban has a tradition of putting police on the beat, with the result that little change of culture or training are required to ensure a smooth transition to a visible municipal police service which focuses on the prevention of crime. Significantly also, local policing in Durban has long experience of working with the SAPS, which largely accepts the municipality's role in contributing towards policing the city.

One danger for Durban, as in the case of all the cities attempting to establish municipal police services, is that political pressure for a police presence may stretch resources too thinly. Already, municipal police stations have been built in outlying areas, and patrols extended to cover a wider geographic area, including townships and housing settlements formally excluded from the ambit of the former Durban City Police.

While such an expansion of duties is understandable given the poor policing service that many citizens receive in these areas (and hence their pressure on local government for better delivery) there may also be drawbacks to spreading resources too thinly.

Municipal police services should concentrate initially on a highly visible and effective presence in built-up or areas (such as city and town centres) used by all South Africans. One of the drawbacks of spreading resources over a larger area, although this may in fact apply less to Durban than to cities like Johannesburg, is the shift from foot to car patrols to cover the greater distances. This would be unfortunate, given the low visibility of police personnel in built-up areas, and the desire to build a tradition of 'bobbies on the beat' that has been absent in South Africa.

Johannesburg

Johannesburg's new Metro Police Department (JMPD) was launched in March 2001. It has approximately 2 500 personnel (uniformed and civilian) drawn from the traffic departments, crime prevention and bylaw enforcement agencies of the former Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, its four local councils and the former Midrand Local Council. (By comparison, the strength of the SAPS in the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area is approximately 10 000 personnel).

The Chief of the JMPD is Chris Ngcobo, a long-time city official who does not have a background in law enforcement. The next level of appointees reporting to him are the eleven heads of the various regional commands, the head of the training academy, legal processing, corporate services etc. There are seven rank levels in the JMPD, from the Chief down to the 'officer'.

The JMPD is made up almost entirely of former city employees—largely the former traffic officers—with a small number of new recruits having completed six months of training at the metro police academy in Johannesburg.

The JMPD is organised into eleven regional commands, one in each of the city's eleven sub-regions. Within each region, the JMPD will perform all three of its functions. In other words, the personnel are not organised separately into traffic, law enforcement or crime prevention functions.

Johannesburg inherited one functioning municipal court in the Midrand region north of the city, and four traffic courts. The JMPD is working on establishing more municipal courts. The traffic bylaws for the whole city have been revised and consolidated into one new bylaw. The same process is under way for all the other bylaws, and the city's legal advisors are expected to have completed the process by April 2002.

The JMPD has prioritised the following parts of the city:

• Inner city (region 8)
  

• Alexandra (region 7) on the east of the city
  

• Ennerdale/Orange Farm (region 11) in the far south
  

• Diepsloot (region 1) in the far north of the city.
  

Johannesburg has budgeted approximately R258 million this year for its Protection Services component (which includes the JMPD as well as various other departments such as Emergency Services). This is a substantial increase on the R151 million allocated in last year's budget. This reflects, in part, some new costs related to the establishment of the JMPD since the last budget was published. The Metro Police Department is the fifth most expensive function for the city government in terms of operating expenses, but one of the least expensive in terms of capital expenditure— this means that the main costs of the JMPD are salaries, rather than equipment.

The Johannesburg metro, which has been promising its residents since 1996 that it would establish a local police service, faces several challenges in its establishment of an MPS. The council has suffered from severe financial problems for a number of years.43 In the city that is widely regarded as the country's crime capital, expectations have been created about the impact of municipal policing which will be difficult to meet. Some controversy surrounded the launch of the Johannesburg metropolitan police when sources within the council suggested that the hype around the unveiling masked the fact that the new metropolitan police were nothing more than the old traffic and security departments in new uniforms.44

The issue of meeting expectations remains a key challenge. Public surveys suggest that one of the key demands of ordinary citizens is for a more visible police presence. Municipal police, given that they are not responsible for investigating crime, will probably be judged in respect of one key criterion: their visibility, particularly in areas where the public feels unsafe. They also face a problem of converting public views of the old traffic departments into positive perceptions of a police service. Traffic officials, largely because of their capacity to levy fines and a reputation in some areas for corruption, were not always well regarded.

The challenge of reversing public perceptions on the expanded role of the MPS is well-illustrated by two recent incidents in Johannesburg. In the first case two new municipal police officers were assaulted while trying to search a suspect who claimed that he did not know that they were law enforcement officers. On the same day another suspect also resisted the actions of a municipal police officer: "Since when can a mere traffic officer search me?".45 While traffic officers always, in fact, had the powers to search suspects, it will take time for the role and functions of the municipal police officers to be clearly established and accepted by the public.

Pretoria

Prior to the creation of the new unicities at the end of 2000, the Greater Pretoria Metropolitan Council (GPMC) commissioned consultants to investigate the feasibility of establishing a metro police service in the country's capital. Although the existing traffic and bylaw enforcement capacity in Pretoria is limited, city officials view the establishment of a MPS as important for the future prosperity of the city for two reasons: rising crime levels which have been partly attributed to the displacement of serious and violent crime from Johannesburg to Pretoria, and the possibility that Parliament will relocate to Pretoria.

The Tshwane Council (Pretoria unicity's new name) is considering the establishment of its Metro Police Service by the end of this year or at least by June 2002. Former SAPS Provincial Commissioner Sharma Maharaj has been appointed to head up the Tshwane Metro Police initiative.

Tshwane has budgeted approximately R220 million for its Protection Services component in this financial year (starting July 2001)—an increase on the R132 million allocated last year. Part of this amount (R40 million) will be dedicated to the development metro policing.

Tshwane is the only city (to date) which is considering including a 'social crime prevention unit' in its Metro Police organisation.

Cape Town

The Western Cape MEC for Community Safety, Hennie Bester, this month approved the establishment of the Cape Town City Police from 1 December 2001.

The preliminary MPS model proposed a force of 3 000 people structured according to seven ranks. The City Commissioner (Chief) will lead the MPS with assistance rom some Deputies, Zone/Area Chiefs, and Precinct/Station Chiefs. The members are to be deployed in the eight zones/areas that have been created for the MPS across the metro (there are different sub-divisions for each municipal function). The key issue in deciding these deployment zones was to ensure good co-operation with the SAPS.

The deployment of the MPS will probably be aligned with the four crime 'hotspot' and urban renewal areas in Cape Town:

• Manenberg
  

• Mitchells Plein
  

• Elsies River
  

• Khayelitsha.
  

All those who join the Cape Town MPS will have to undergo the 24 week training course (i.e. they will not do the 'conversion' of traffic officers to MPS officers like Johannesburg did). There is a strong emphasis on creating a new service rather than re-structuring or amalgamating any of the existing structures. Of the first 500 trainees (who began training in July), most are new recruits—between 100 and 200 will be existing council staff. Fifty Community Patrol Officers (also known as the city's 'rent-a-cops') are among the new recruits. The provincial government is committing significant resources to municipal police training, and has established a training academy for this purpose. Its aim is to train 400-500 municipal police members every six months.

In terms of its bylaws, the city is in the process of drafting a new 'order maintenance' bylaw to address issues like parking attendants, hawking, soliciting, vagrants, etc. A second municipal court was planned for earlier this year, which would focus only on the prosecution of bylaws. Similar courts will then be formed in other parts of the city. The metro has budgeted R8 million this year for these courts. (Each court costs about R1 million per year to run, including all salaries and provision of facilities.)

The city government has planned for an additional R32 million on this year's budget for the MPS. This will grow over the next four years. (The metro council's Safer Cities Program, which focuses on social crime prevention, has a budget of R7 million this year.)

One distinguishing feature of Cape Town's approach is that the Western Cape provincial government is providing the training facility for the MPS. This has been done for two reasons:

• For stndardisation—to ensure uniform and high levels of training to municipal police officers throughout the province, and
  
  
  

• Out of recognition that local governments do not have the funds to provide training. Provincial government has a mandate to 'support local government' and provision of training has been seen as a means of fulfilling this mandate.
  

The provincial government will cover the direct costs associated with training the Cape Town Metro Police recruits (R9 000 per recruit for the course).

Two key and inter-related factors advantage the Cape Town metro in its process of establishing a MPS. First, the strong political drive by the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the province to establish such a service. Given that the DA has little control over the actions of the national police, the building of a strong and efficient local police service is seen as a priority for reducing crime in the city.

Like Durban, Cape Town has a direct interest in the visible presence of police officers in tourist areas. Second, it funding for the establishment (including training) of the municipal police service is being drawn from both the local and provincial level, and the project will be a flagship of the municipality as well as of the province. One of the consequences of the investment in the Cape Town MPS by the provincial government will be a strong political requirement for effective service delivery.

Other cities and towns

The authors know of several other municipalities that are considering establishing MPS:

• Drakenstein/Paarl in the Western Cape
  
  

• Swartland/Malmesbury/Moreesburg in the Western Cape
  
  

• George/Mosselbay/Riversdal in the Western Cape
  
  

• Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape
  
  

• Highveld East Municipality in Mpumalanga
  
  

• Ekhurhuleni (Greater East Rand Metro) submitted an application to the Gauteng Provincial Government early this year. That application was assessed and some issues (especially of sustainability and financing) were identified as needing further work. Ekhurhuleni hopes to launch its MPS with 700 members—made up of former traffic officers from the various municipalities that constitute the new unicity.
  
  

• Nelson Mandela Metro (formerly Port Elizabeth) intends establishing a Metro Police Service but does not have sufficient financial resources at present. Interim stages of developing a new law enforcement capacity are being considered.